Present day communication systems support a rich menu of different voice, video, text and data communication services between mobile and stationary communication terminals and the people who use them. In addition, they support internet connectivity and a growing variety of location based services (LBSs). An LBS provides a person with information, entertainment and/or communications via an audio and/or visual interface of a mobile terminal which the person is using and carrying, responsive to a current geographical location of the person. The mobile terminal may be any of today's ubiquitous portable communication accessories, such as for example, a smart phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a laptop, or a workbook. Unless specified otherwise, information is understood to be used generically to include information, entertainment, and/or data that may be provided by an LBS.
The person's geographical location is typically determined from a location provided by any of various wireless location technologies of the mobile terminal. The location technologies include, by way of example, those employed by global navigation satellite systems, such as the global positioning satellite (GPS) system, mobile telephone networks, and/or Wi-Fi and may be automatic and/or require performance of a check-in procedure by the person.
Relevant LBS information provided or available to a person from a LBS via his or her mobile terminal may comprise information regarding manmade and/or natural features, hereinafter also referred to as venues, of an environment, which are, generally, within a limited geographical region and that he or she can physically access within a relatively short term period of time. Venues provided by the LBS, may, also be for a geographical region in which a person is not currently present but for which the person is interested in receiving information independent of distance of the geographical region from the person's current location. Relevant information provided to a person by his or her LBS may also comprise information regarding locations of other persons, which locations may or may not be accessible within a short period of time by the person requesting the information.
Typically, the information is provided by a server in a communication network in response to requests that the network receives from the person and in response to communications that the network receives which provide the person's location. The requested information may, by way of example, be for a local road map, with or without visual and/or audio aids for using the map to drive from the person's current location to a desired destination, or for locations of restaurants, stores, theaters and/or other desired venues within walking or driving range of the person. The information may also comprise alerts, and/or reminders, for example, to acquire or redeem coupons, or to attend to desired errands at particular venues within a predetermined distance from the person's current location. Requests for information relevant to a geographical location transmitted to an LBS are also referred to hereinafter as “geo-queries”.
The relevant information is, by definition, location dependent and is of course subject to change as the person moves and changes his or her location. Relevant information may also be time dependent and change, or become “stale”, with time of day, or as the environment in which the person is located changes over time. For example, information regarding an opportunity to purchase tickets to a given showing of a movie at a theater within walking distance of a person may change and become obsolete if at a time at which showing the movie begins, the opportunity lapses. Or, information indicating that a miniature golf range is open may change if upon onset of a summer rain squall, the golf range closes to visitors. The information may also change as needs and preferences of a person change. For example, a person who geo-queried an LBS to provide addresses for two sidewalk Italian restaurants nearest to her current location may, if it begins to rain, determine that she can delay the Italian restaurant and submit an urgent priority request for a location of a nearest store that sells umbrellas.
To provide an acceptable quality of service in response to a client's geo-queries, an LBS typically transmits amounts of information to a mobile terminal, such as a smart phone, that may be comparatively very large relative to the device's memory and information processing resources. The amount of information may also be large relative to a communication bandwidth that the device supports for receiving the information. In addition, determining the device's geographical location using GPS signals, or signals from a mobile telephone network is energy intensive. Repeatedly updating the LBS with the device's geographical location can draw down the device's battery relatively quickly. Repeated location updating and geo-querying may also be relatively expensive.